


Reunion

by Diasimar



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Fictober Prompt: "I missed this", sledgefu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:13:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27002542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diasimar/pseuds/Diasimar
Summary: Snafu hated to watch him cry. Would’ve moved heaven and earth to keep every hurt in the world from him, but he couldn’t do it now any more than he could’ve done it back on the islands. There’s just too many ways to kill a man and leave him walking the earth.
Relationships: Merriell "Snafu" Shelton & Eugene Sledge, Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	Reunion

The first reunion of K Company was in the fall of ’49. Burgie organized it at the VFW Hall in Jewett, and everyone to a man had promised his attendance.

Eugene pondered the strangeness of seeing them all like this - clean and fattened up, swilling their drinks around wooden folding tables and chairs - how odd a thing it was to know these men better than he knew himself, and yet this was the first time he’d seen any of them out of uniform.  
  
He made the rounds, caught up on everyone’s stories; then, as he’d always done, he found a quiet spot to collect his thoughts and jot a few down. The others took no offense, and Burgie accepted his insistence that he was fine when he came by to check. After a while Gene returned the small notebook to his breast pocket and blindly grabbed a bottle from the nearest cooler without care for its contents. _He’s not gonna show._ The thought swirled in his stomach more than his brain. _He’s not comi—_  
  
Snafu swung both double doors open at once like he was king of VFW Post 3542. Everyone turned to look, which was his aim of course. He looked handsome in khaki slacks and a starched blue shirt that turned his eyes to sapphires. His mouth was wide open on a smile, and all the men let out a collective, “Eyy!” followed by a cacophony of their finest bullshit they’d been saving for the finest bullshitter.  
  
He took a shot with every table, changing his toast to suit the men gathered around it:  
“To women, wives and lovers: may they never meet!”  
“If the army and the navy ever look on heaven’s scenes, they will find the streets are guarded by” — he raised his glass as the table shouted in unison — “the United States Marines!”  
“To honor! To getting honor, to staying honor, if you can’t cum in her, cum honor!”  
  
Snafu ate up the attention (and the free booze), but when his eyes found Eugene silently raising a beer to him, far from the swarm, he couldn’t look away even through the jostling and handshaking. He slapped Burgie on the shoulder and let the sea reconvene where it had parted for him, then made a beeline for his fellow mortarman.  
  
“How you been, Sledgehamma?” he asked, dispensing with hellos as if their conversation were already in progress. Eugene was grateful for the directness. He’d have held that beer til the glass turned back to sand if it were up to him to start talking first.  
  
“Pretty good, how ‘bout yourself?”  
  
Snafu eyed him thoughtfully, taking in his slender frame under his Sunday best like it was an exercise in memory. He decided to ask another question rather than answer the one he’d been posed.  
  
“How you been usin’ all this peacetime?”  
  
Gene dropped his head in modesty. “Just finished my degree.”  
  
“Good on ya, boy. In what, Covert Bible Scribblin’?”  
  
Gene was happy at easily falling back into his role as the butt of Snafu’s little jokes. “Business administration.”  
  
Snafu smirked, and Eugene could hear the response in his head before it ever left those cocked lips —  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Gene smiled at the knowledge he could still see Snaf coming from a mile away.  
  
“What about you, you put that G.I. Bill to any use?”  
  
Snafu lit a cigarette and spoke through the exhale, a screen against letting anyone see that he was proud of himself. “Did an auto mechanic’s certificate. Just some little technical college in Opelousas.”  
  
“Which one?” Gene wasn’t going to let him get away with downplaying his achievements.  
  
“LTC has a campus out there. I stayed with my cousin and drove home on the weekends.” He shrugged but was clearly buoyed by Gene’s interest. “Might go back and get my associate’s down the road.”  
  
“That sounds real good, Mer.”  
  
Hearing his given name on Eugene’s lips froze him up for a moment and he had to physically shake it off, curls bouncing. His eyes were all mischief when he continued.  
  
“You got a girl?”  
  
“No,” Gene replied, unwilling to return the question.  
  
Snafu lowered his voice and his defenses. “You got a boy?”  
  
Gene paused and tried to swallow his heart out of his throat. Was he going to do this now? “Thought I did.”  
  
“What happened?” Snaf asked, his cigarette burning to ash at his side.  
  
“Don’t know,” Gene said, dropping his eyes to the ground again. “I woke up and he was gone.”  
  
He raised his gaze slowly, unsure whether he was more afraid that Snafu caught his meaning or that he didn’t.  
  
Snafu’s face was agonizingly neutral, and Gene looked away from it again.  
  
The Cajun’s cigarette hissed a spark on the floor when he dropped it and took Gene by the wrist. He snuck a glance at the group and found them utterly oblivious to his and Snafu’s private reunion, then followed as pliantly as if he knew where he was being dragged. The truth was he didn’t care.  
  
Snafu led him down the only hallway in the building, the sound of his cowboy boots so sharp on the gleaming linoleum that for a moment Gene thought he might have been wearing spurs. He tried the handle of a door labeled Janitor. When he felt it turn in his hand, he moaned softly as if it was Eugene that was opening to him.  
  
He pulled the redhead inside and was on him before the door relatched. The light switch was dead, so Snafu groped above them until his hand found a thin pull chain attached to one naked bulb.  
  
The illumination didn’t cure their blindness to anything but each other. Gene nearly fell backward over a bucket but managed to kick it out of the way. The clatter it made against the sloped concrete floor was no match for the blood pounding in his ears.  
  
Snaf bordered on rough with him, kissing so hungrily that he couldn’t find a pause for air. Eventually what they were doing couldn’t be accurately described as kissing. They were huffing sharp breaths and making agonized sounds into each other’s mouths, only occasionally finding purchase with their lips as they tried to clumsily undress one another.  
  
Snafu’s calloused hands untucked Gene’s finely pressed shirt and pulled his body close once they found the skin of his back. They could feel each other, hard and twitching, and when Gene reached down to touch him through his slacks Snaf felt like he would come unwound with want. He pressed his hand on Eugene’s to hold him there and bucked against the forced grip until he felt his balls go tight.  
  
The next thing Eugene knew, Snafu had used some sleight of hand to get his pants around his ankles with only a feather light touch to the button. He looked down at the short tumble of curls at the top of Snafu’s head where he’d fallen to his knees. There was no teasing, only the deep wet of his throat and the firm drag of his lips as he took Gene to the hilt in one go.  
  
He sucked deep and fast without any thought to whether the poor boy could handle it. Eugene couldn’t even form words, only the strangled sounds of a body caught between the two competing goals of deliverance and deferral. So when the crouched man pulled his head away, Gene huffed a few breaths of gratitude and reached to angle his face up to admire the way it glistened to the chin under the harsh light. But this was not mercy.  
  
Snafu spit against his fingertips and held his eyes on Eugene as long as he could while taking his cock back in his mouth. His wet fingers circled the tight bud below, and he moaned around the heavy flesh in his mouth when he felt it contract with every jolt of pleasure he provided. He kept adding pressure to the circular motion, and when he slipped his fat middle finger inside, Gene’s voice generated a new word with no input from his brain whatsoever - “Aughfuck.”  
  
He shot back from Snafu, and there were several seconds where he still wasn’t sure whether it had been fast enough to stop the inevitable. So when he heard the man chuckle, still on his knees and covered in his own spit, he wanted to turn the tables.  
  
“Get up,” he commanded.  
  
Snaf stood slowly, wiping his mouth on his sleeve so that all that was visible of his face were those twinkling eyes. Gene spun him around by his elbow and reached around to unlatch his belt and slacks. He wasn’t wearing underwear, and Gene wondered if that was standard or evidence of malice aforethought.  
  
He leaned him over an upturned crate and spread him open, spitting harshly and smearing it with his tongue. He felt something like pride when it produced a hiss and rough groan from the same mouth that had been laughing at him a moment ago. He ate him and jerked him, and when he pulled away he could see the precum falling from Snafu’s tip in strands like spider’s silk.  
  
He spat on him again and fingered it inside, then once more into his own hand to wet himself. He lined up and tried to go slow, but Snafu was rocking back onto him, needy and aching, every breath a moan. It was the first time Eugene had been inside anyone since the last time he was with Snafu, and he tried not to think about whether the opposite was true, though he was sure it wasn’t.  
  
He pushed Snafu’s shirttail up his back and admired the muscles there, full and flexed, covering the bones better than they had in the years when Gene could count his vertebrae in this position. Now when he leaned over and licked the valley of his spine, there was enough substance nearby to venture a nibble.  
  
When he stood upright again his hands gripped at Snafu’s hips, not as a guide but simply to hang on for dear life as the smaller man bounced back against him at a dizzying pace. Snaf was touching himself, moans and curses fighting for the right to every breath, and when he came it was so hard they could hear it hit the floor beneath them.  
  
Gene had been gritting his teeth to make it this far, so as soon as Snafu stopped grinding he pulled out and aimed for the same spot on the floor, the last few shots missing the mark and landing in Snafu’s pants. He took a moment to enjoy the sight of their cum mingled, then scuffed it into the concrete with his wingtips.  
  
Gene pulled up his pants immediately, but Snafu stayed there splayed and panting for a moment, always putting on a show. He stood with a satisfied, “Woo!” and slipped his trousers back on, unfazed by the bit of Gene turning cold in the seam. They readied themselves in silence while their breathing evened until Snafu broke it.  
  
“I missed this,” he confessed, eyes glassy with two kinds of drunk. “Sneakin’ off somewhere away from those jokers and then tryna find a way back that don’t look suspicious.”  
  
Eugene snorted a laugh. “Everyone’s suspicious, Snaf. You’re not the master of discretion.”  
  
“Me?! You think I call you Red ‘causa ya hair, boy? Wish you could see ya face right now.” He slid on a boot and then drew him close, kissing the flush of a cheek and opposing ear, stopping for a brief layover on his lips.  
  
Gene smiled and kissed him back slow, finding he craved the taste of whiskey in Snafu’s mouth nearly as much as Snafu did.  
  
“Where you staying?” he asked as Snafu broke away from his lips and resumed a trail of affection over his flushed skin.  
  
“The Romus and Flo Value Inn.”  
  
“Good grief, am I the only man here who got a motel? How many rooms does Burgie have out there?”  
  
“Florence’ll have us all in the hog pen with the resta our kin no doubt,” Snafu quipped, abandoning his feast to tuck in his shirt.  
  
Eugene fidgeted under the stark light, suddenly aware of its stabbing glare and wishing he could dim it. “You could stay with me.”  
  
Snaf, unruffled as ever with his heel balanced on the crate he’d just been doubled over, arranged his pant leg over the gape of his cowboy boot and tossed a grin over his shoulder. “I sure could, Sledgehamma.”  
  
Gene performed something less than a wince but recognizable as discomfort all the same.  
  
“Don’t call me that here. When it’s just us.”  
  
Snafu dropped his foot from the crate and pulled Eugene’s arm around his waist. “What should I call you then?”  
  
“I dunno, something else.”  
  
“Gene the Machine?” Sledge grinned and tried to pull away but Snaf held him there. “Hmm? The redhead that makes my head red?”  
  
“Oh my god, forget it!”  
  
“I know what I’d like to call ya,” the Cajun purred.  
  
“I’m afraid to ask.”  
  
“Take me to this hotel of yours later and maybe I’ll tell ya.”  
  
“Motel.”  
  
“Ah Gene, you in a part of the world now where there ain’t no difference.”  
  


* * *

  
In the wee hours before dawn, a cigarette burned in Room 12 of the Delk Motor Lodge on Highway 79. Snafu passed it to Eugene, who placed it in the ashtray without partaking. The smaller man’s damp curls were pressed to the wispy tuft of red hair on his lover’s chest, and Gene combed them absently in the dark.  
  
“Mine.”  
  
“Hmm?” Gene breathed, his energy for words all used up on the man in his arms.  
  
“That’s what I’d call you if it was up to me.”  
  
He planted the knee that was already swung over Eugene’s waist and straddled him, knowing the man beneath him was too exhausted to have to do more work.  
  
“One more,” he pleaded, and Gene could feel his spent cock start to grow as if Merriell was its commander.  
  
They made love until the sun stole through the crack between the dingy mauve curtains, creating a faint beam that cut them in half.  
  
“I betta get on the road soon,” Snaf said, his chin already showing peppery stubble where he propped it on Gene’s pec. “It’s seven hours home and I gotta report bright eyed and bushy tailed Monday mornin’.”  
  
“When will I see you?” Gene asked, the ache of separation spreading through his chest already.  
  
“I think Jay’s hostin’ next year. So I’ll see you in Californ-i-a.”  
  
Gene’s face twisted up like it was on strings. “Next year?”  
  
Snafu slipped out of his hold and pawed the bed for his socks. He found them and turned them right side out, trying hard to keep up his casual air.  
  
“I think one day a year with Bill Leyden is enough for anybody, Sledgehamma.”  
  
“I _said_ don’t call me that!”  
  
Snaf turned his body toward what he wanted but kept his feet firmly on the floor. “I got off the train, Gene!” He yelled it, because Eugene wasn’t hearing all the other ways he was saying it. “And I’d do it again. You think it mattas what we call each otha? Whateva you think is waitin’ for us boy, it ain’t. All we get is next year, and the one afta that and afta that. ‘Cause it ain’t up to me! And it ain’t up to you eitha. This world ain’t made for us.”  
  
Eugene tore the sheets back and began dressing himself like he was preparing to storm out.  
  
“The world’s got nothing to do with it,” he muttered bitterly. “You just don’t want to try.”  
  
Snafu walked around the foot of the bed, still naked, and tried to take his hands. Gene shoved him. Snaf caught his footing and pushed back hard enough to send the taller man stumbling into the mattress. He spoke from his heart before things turned into an all out brawl.  
  
“I’ve thought about you every day, Sledge. You think I wouldn’t take you home with me right now if I could?”  
  
“What’s stopping you?” came the challenge.  
  
Snaf paused, suddenly aware of his nakedness like he'd just tasted the forbidden fruit. He pulled his pants from the back of the blotchy upholstered armchair near the bed and stepped into them as he spoke.  
  
“I ain’t got no cousin in Opelousas. I found someone. He wasn’t what you are to me, Gene, but I cared for him.”  
  
He laughed nervously, not because there was anything funny about what came next. It was the reflex of a man who didn’t speak about emotions unless it was absolutely required.  
  
“I watched him get beaten to death in the street from our bedroom window. He had gone to get me a chocolate bar ‘cause I was beggin’ for one.” Snafu’s eyes were closed, and Gene could tell this was the same as a war memory - the kind you relive every time you think of it. “I saw ‘em comin’ but I couldn’t get there fast enough. One of ‘em had a pipe and they was yellin’ faggot…”  
  
Gene rushed from the bed and held him close, shushing and petting and soothing. Snafu stepped back to make his point, eyes wide open now.  
  
“When I called the police, they arrested _**me**_ , Eugene. For ‘degeneracy and gross indecency’. They wouldn’t release his body to me. I don’t even know where he’s buried.” He flicked a tear from his cheek like it was a gnat. “We didn’t go through all we went through just to come home and get killed for this. I won’t let it happen. We get next year, you undastand?”  
  
Gene felt the high ground receding, and his will to fight along with it. With his extra inch of height, he held a kiss to the curve of Snaf’s head in affirmation.  
  


* * *

  
A half hour later all that was left to say was goodbye.  
  
“Just a year,” Snafu said softly through the open window of his pickup. “I bet you’ll like California. I’ll go halvsies with you if ya wanna spring for a real _**h**_ otel.”  
  
It was no use. He couldn’t pull a smile out of Eugene now with a puppy on a leash. He was going to cry. Snafu hated to watch him cry, would’ve moved heaven and earth to keep every hurt in the world from him. But he couldn’t do it now any more than he could’ve done it back on the islands. There’s just too many ways to kill a man and leave him walking the earth.  
  
“I love you,” Gene choked out, and sure enough the tears came right behind it.  
  
Snafu started the truck and risked the threat of being seen to gently thumb his cheek and lips. He threw it in reverse and made sure the wheels were rolling before he answered like a coward, “Me too.”  
  
He was halfway to Lufkin, in the clear he thought, when it all came down on him like a ton of lead. He cried so hard he had to pull over and kick up a cloud of East Texas red clay just to keep from screaming. It settled on his face in the pattern of his tears, and he spit on a tissue to dab at the stains when he got back into the cab of the truck.  
  
“If it was up to me…” he said low as a prayer when he veered back onto the empty stretch of blacktop. “Goddammit all, Sledge, if it was up to me.”


End file.
